Friday, 23 March 2018

That one time I lost to Lloyd Fell

One of the reasons my wife stopped coming to chess tournaments was Lloyd Fell. Not because she had any personal issues with him mind you, but simply because his games were almost always the last ones to finish. And as I always hung around for the prize giving (despite never winning a prize), this meant hanging around until Lloyd finished.
Over the years my wife has conflated her memories of watching Lloyd play, with watching Lloyd play me. "I hope you don't have to play Fell in the last round" would often be the farewell she would give me as I left for a weekend (when Lloyd was still alive). As it turns out, I may have only ever played Lloyd on a single occasion, although it certainly was in the last round. And looking over the score of the game, it seems it wasn't a very long game, as I blundered a pawn early, and lost without too much effort.